At the age of twelve, Daniel Barenboim was a poised, accomplished pianist with three years of major concerts to his credit. In the summer of 1955, he was taking a conducting class at the Salzburg Mozarteum. The school had brought in a series of guest teachers, conductors who were working...

This week on All Songs Considered we reflect on age and time, how we make sense of the world as we all grow older, and how it all ties in to the artist who opens this week's show: Sufjan Stevens. Stevens has been busy with numerous projects since releasing his...

The artists featured on this week's Jazz Night In America Wednesday Night Webcast are, by a fair margin, the least-known performers we've had on the program. Their names don't travel far outside the underrated musicians' community of the mid-Atlantic — specifically, Washington, D.C. — but not for lack of talent...

I'll be online at reddit.com/r/music on Wednesday, February 11, 1 to 2 p.m. EST, answering your questions. I'm a little scared because you can actually ask me anything . It will be kind of a Tiny Desk Concert (intimate, awkward) but I'm sure we'll have fun. In case you need...

When Amit Peled was 10, his parents gave him a gift: a cassette of music by cello master Pablo Casals. Peled had no classical background; his parents were not musicians. He says his own budding interest in the cello was a scam, a way of getting close to a girl...

In honor of Valentine's Day, we asked our listeners to name their ideal romantic song. After receiving over a thousand replies, we tallied the results, listened, swooned (and sometimes scratched our heads). On this week's show, Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton count down the top 10 and share a couple...

In his memoirs Ignacy Jan Paderewski tells of a concert during which he learned a hard lesson about showmanship. In 1890 Paderewski was making a name for himself as one of Europe’s leading pianists, but he discovered that when it came to exciting audiences, a performer needed more than musicianship...

Many a performer has been forced to cancel a concert when the rigors of an intensive schedule led to a physical or emotional breakdown. Occasionally a concert goes awry because of a smaller problem–simple confusion. Consider a news item in The Philadelphia Inquirer regarding the case of Thomas Zehetmair, who...

The lover or the priest? An incident from early in the life of Franz Liszt suggests that even as a teenager he had the impulses of both. By the age of sixteen Liszt had long since made a name for himself as one of Europe’s great pianists. In Paris he...

When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s sister Nannerl chided him for not writing more often, he sent her a reply that explained where all his time had gone. He wrote on February 13, 1782: Our father, when he has finished his duties in church, and you, when you’re through with your students,...